


Caesar Enchanted

by Darkwood_Princess



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Chess as an art, Gen, Poetry, Rudyard Kipling - Freeform, This is what happens, Walter De La Mare, Your style rhymes and you can't change that, and Wordsworth, in particular rhyming poetry, the other characters are implied, this is from grindelwald's point of view, when you grow up on a diet of Langston Hughes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 23:49:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8774563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkwood_Princess/pseuds/Darkwood_Princess
Summary: What is one of the most terrifying aspects of war, if not the leaders? Grindelwald is charismatic and - more importantly - he is intelligent. Chess is never just a board game, not when lives hang in the balance.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to write something about Newt and dragons and war and abstract characterizations of our heroes and heroines and somehow I ended up with chess and Grindelwald's rather evil machinations. 
> 
> Writing is like that - your pen takes you places your planning never dreams of. 
> 
> This poem in many ways is inspired by the horror I feel every time I hear a story of the masses taken in by the charisma that often hides a clever and conniving mind. As a Muslim American, a rather scrutinized minority, the thought of what it takes to make a proper leader is never far from my thoughts, especially when watching the news these days.

**_ Caesar Enchanted _ **

Chess is the ancient teacher,

Of strategy divine.

Feint and sleight and fight,

Keep and hold your line.

                Or don’t.

The skill is in the play.

Trick the opponent gently,

Uphold the masquerade.

 

Until your time is ready,

“Will we die, just a little?”

Heroes are mortal – desperately so

They cannot solve an answerless riddle.

 

So confuse them.

                Confound them.

Bind them.

                Surround them.

With lies and rules and boundaries

                Artificial, Magical, Political

Twist and turn the image…

                … Until you are no longer so radical.

 

Command the masses:

                Rise!

And watch the ‘heroes’ stumble –

                Checkmate in their eyes. 

 


End file.
